Winners and losers

Call it the “for whatever it’s worth” vote.

On election day, I gave eligible voters in my household guide ballots, telling them that even if the surveys showed our preferred candidates outside the winning circle, have the wrong surnames or did not belong to established parties, we could make it a protest vote.

What do you know… I wasn’t alone in my thinking.

Two camps are winners in the elections. One is the Duterte camp, with even Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia getting hit. It’s a Duterte landslide in Davao City. And with five openly pro-Duterte bets in the Senate Magic 12, Vice President Sara could survive impeachment.

The other is the pink wave. I always wondered what had happened to the over 15 million believers in what that pink campaign stood for. Well, there it is, with Bam Aquino jumping to a stunning second place in the Senate race, and Francis Pangilinan landing in fifth. In the party-list, Akbayan of Chel Diokno topped the race, with ML – for Mamamayang Liberal – of Leila de Lima also making it.

Even former chief government auditor Heidi Mendoza registered a strong showing, despite modest campaign resources.

And now for the losers: No. 1 is Marcos 2.0 and his Alyansa ng Bagong Pilipinas, which failed to sweep the Senate race.

No. 2 are the survey firms, whose polls showed strong wins for Alyansa, even before the rollout of the government machinery just days before election day – a tradition that almost always makes administration candidates dominate midterm races.

The pollsters at least got right the top spot in the Senate race. But they were way off the mark for the No. 1 slot in the party-list.

This could be healthy for our elections. Pollsters stress that their surveys are mere snapshots of public opinion during a particular period. But there is also basis for concerns that pre-election surveys contribute to trending and mind conditioning, especially in a society with low functional literacy, raising name recall even of the unworthy.

The snapshots are also used as gauge by political financiers, whose early support can significantly boost the campaigns of the survey front-runners, allowing them to further raise their profile. This can make the survey results self-fulfilling.

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Late Monday night, as the partial, unofficial numbers hit 62 percent on the Bilang Pilipino monitor of TV5, OCTA Research Group president Ranjit Rye acknowledged that the results were bad for the pollsters.

Those who weren’t registering well in the surveys but came out victorious are surely ecstatic that people ignored the polling results and still voted for their preferred candidates.

In other countries notably the United States and Britain, survey results in recent years have been spectacularly off the mark.

Last week I asked Rye why Philippine pollsters had been pretty accurate in their surveys in past elections.

Stressing that he was speaking only for OCTA and not the other survey firms, Rye told The Philippine STAR’s online show “Truth on the Line” that this could be because OCTA still conducts face-to-face polling, instead of contacting respondents by phone or online.

After May 12, a post mortem would be useful for the pollsters, just like the UK did post-Brexit. Do Filipino respondents lie to pollsters?

A post mortem will also be useful for the Marcos administration. The fact that BBM actively campaigned for the Alyansa bets makes the outcome of the Senate race a debacle for him.

Rubbing salt into his wound is the victory of two bets who bolted the Alyansa: his estranged Ate Imee and Las Piñas Rep. Camille Villar.

BBM will have to carry out dramatic measures – and no gimmickry, please, like the P20-a-kilo rice heavily subsidized by people’s money – if he doesn’t want to slip into lame-duck status prematurely in his term.

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It took me 15 minutes to cast my vote in a public school, as usual before noon when the summer heat normally thins the crowd at the polling center.

Many other voters were not so lucky, waiting in line for hours. The crowding worsened the poor ventilation in many public schools, with not enough seats provided to many of those in line.

There were reports of elderly voters and persons with disabilities who lacked proper access such as ramps to the priority voting area. Many polling centers did not even have these priority areas for PWD, seniors and pregnant women.

Mechanical glitches in the automated counting machines were reported in several areas. The Comelec said it had to pull out and replace 311 ACMs.

I cite these problems to illustrate the determination of Filipinos to exercise the right of suffrage. This determination may also be fueled by fears that “flying voters” might be trucked in to take the place of those who don’t vote.

All the hue and cry against political dynasties, vote buying, overspending and illegal posting of campaign materials failed to shame the dynasts and candidates who engaged in illegal or unfair campaigning.

Why are Filipinos so enthusiastic about voting? Because we believe in the power of the ballot to bring about change. But over the years the results have been disappointing.

Sometimes I wondered if we were beginning to fit the description of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to get different results.

Before May 12, that description seemed particularly apt, as all the reputable pollsters showed similar results on voter preferences.

Yet now the pollsters have turned out wrong in many aspects. The results weren’t the ideal, but they never are; even VP Sara was disappointed.

But still, the outcomes show that our votes were worth it. Yay.